Us With No Names
by MoonOfBlue
Summary: The Janitor befriends a patient with amnesia and a little girl and thinks back to the time where Red-haired Doctor treaded the hallways of the Sacred Heart Hospital. Janitor-fluff. Rated T for slight adult themes in later chapters (just to be sure).
1. Chapter 1 - Jane Doe

**Chapter 1 – Jane Doe**

There were three hundred and six tiles in the ceiling. I had counted them five times, just to proof to myself that I was still able to do it. One of them had a crack that reminded me of something, but just like anything else, I couldn't recall it for the life of me.

I could see fifty-six rooftops from the hospital bed and nineteen planes had flown past the window. In the corner above the TV was a small spot I had first mistaken for a spider, but it hadn't moved for three hours, so it probably wasn't. I kind of wish it were, though. Then I could give it a name. At least one of us deserved a name.

I couldn't remember mine.

I couldn't remember anything. I had seven stiches in my skull and a fractured wrist, but no idea how I ended up that way. The hospital staff had found no ID on me, when I was brought in yesterday. The police told me I had been mugged and eyewitnesses had seen a man run from the alley, where I was found unconscious, but I hadn't even the foggiest memory of the incident.

My doctor had informed me that I was at the Sacred Heart Hospital in California. I had a vague feeling that I was far away from home, but honestly I'm sure I only came to that conclusion because I couldn't recognize the area I could see from the bed.

From I had woken up this morning to now, I must have been visited by every single doctor the hospital could provide: Doctor Cox, the no-nonsense Chief Resident; Dorian, who was young and eager, Reid, a fast talking female doctor and a bunch of interns who stared at me like I was a rare, but obscure specimen in a glass of formaldehyde.

I had gotten a CT-scan, an EEG and my blood had been drained by nurses with worried eyes and too-hearty smiles who called me 'Sweetie." I had been examined from top to bottom. I had talked to the hospitals physiatrist as well as the police. The result was the same. No one could find an answer to what was wrong with me. Least of all myself.

I was a Jane Doe.

I was no one.


	2. Chapter 2 - The Mop Ghost of Sacred Hear

**Chapter 2 – The Mop Ghost of Sacred Heart**

It was late. I had been staring at myself in the bathroom mirror for half an hour. It wasn't a stranger looking back at me, but something wasn't quite right. I knew her, but I didn't _feel_ like the person in the mirror. I bit my lip. The girl did the same, looking dejected. I had a bruise under my left eye and the skin had been scraped of my right cheekbone. I stared at my hands. Both palms were grazed, as if I had fallen on asphalt.

Could I had been defending myself against the mugger? The possibility of it was uplifting. I had at least been brave, before everything went blank.

There was a knock on the door and the night nurse called: "You okay in there?"

I cleared my throat. "Yes."

"Time for bed," she called back, as if I was five years old.

I crawled under the covers, gulped down the painkillers the nurse handed me and leaned back with a sigh. Then I laid awake for nearly two hours, staring up at the ceiling, before I gave up.

If it hadn't been because the nurses' station was empty at that very moment, I stepped out of bed, I might never had left my ward that night. But it was. I grabbed my bathrobe and shoes and sneaked away in the darkness. I needed air.

Thinking there had to be a way out in the open that didn't include the main entrance, I tiptoed up the stairs until I reached the last floor. It was eerily quiet up here. I walked down the empty hallways, my heart beating a little faster than usual. Finally, after having walked up and down the mazelike corridors for several minutes, I found a promising-looking door. I could see the stars through the glass, but when I tried to open it, it turned out to be locked.

 _Dammit._

I walked back to the stairs, but when I opened the door three floors further down, were I thought I had come from, I saw nothing but darkness.

 _Well, this is amusing…_

Perhaps I was on the wrong side of the building. I turned right down a long corridor that smelled of chlorine. I walked past an abandoned cleaning cart and followed the corridor around a corner. The chlorine smell intensified suddenly…

My forehead collided with something tall and firm and I bounced back with an audible 'Ouch!', rather confused, thinking I had missed a closed door or the hallway had suddenly ended. But when I looked up, the mysterious obstacle, I had rammed headfirst into, moved and I let out a startled half gasp-half squeak.

A person towered above me; a man in his early forties, dressed in the dark blue-greyish maintenance uniform the hospital cleaning staff was wearing. Besides raising an inquisitive brow at me, his face was completely expressionless in the semi-darkness, as though people used to sneak around and bump into him on a nightly basis.

"God in heaven…" I breathed out, rubbing the painful mark his top uniform button had left on my forehead.

"Nope, sorry, not him," the man responded. "But you people sure are crazy about that guy."

I glared up at him, not sure whether to laugh or run away.

"Why are you cleaning in the dark?" I asked him, when I noticed the wet mop in his hand and concluded that it was probably his cleaning cart I had just passed.

"Why are you rummaging the hallways like a tiny, bandaged ghost, Petite Patient?" he requited, his gaze landing on my bound headwound.

"I'm not _rummaging_ ," I protested, a bit hurt. I had actually done my very best to be quiet.

The janitor leaned against his mop, scrutinizing me. "What are you doing then?"

"I'm…" I hesitated but realized I couldn't possibly make it any more embarrassing for myself after I had just headbutted a strange man in a dark corridor. "I'm actually a bit lost, to be honest."

"What's your ward-number?"

"I – uh. I don't quite remember," I admitted. "But it's not up here."

"No, this is the Diagnostic Imaging and Surgery-floor. There's not a living soul up here at this time of the day."

"Except for you."

His taciturn expression was broken by a sudden, impish smirk and he lowered his voice in an ominous matter: "Who says I'm alive? I could be the Mop Ghost of Sacred Heart for all you knew."

I shook my head, feeling myself smiling. "Somehow I doubt that. Besides, my poor head can confirm that you're suspiciously massive for an apparition."

He tilted his head slightly and shrugged, as if to say, _fair enough,_ and let his mop rest against the wall.

"Come on," he said. "I'll help you."

"Thanks."

We took the elevator down and stopped at every floor, until I recognized the nurse sitting at the front desk. She looked up, when she heard us, and her mouth tightened into a displeased line. She was on the phone and she had clearly noticed my disappearance.

"What are you doing?" the nurse said sharply, eyeing the janitor, the moment she hung up. My towering rescuer tensed up beside me, frowning.

"She was lost," he responded gruffly. "I helped her find her way back."

"Why were you even out of bed, young lady?" the nurse continued, hands on her hips. Before I could answer, she marched me back to my ward. I didn't even have time to thank the janitor for his help, so I ended up just waving at him. He nodded back, hands buried deep in his pockets and his face once again stern and unreadable.


	3. Chapter 3 - The Janitor

**Chapter 3 – The Janitor**

Despite not getting a lot of sleep that night, I woke up early, feeling better that the day before. The painkillers worked; the pain in my wrist was barely a throbbing, and I was hungry. The strict nurse came with a tray and I dug in, clumsily, because I had to eat with my left hand.

There was a striking lack of doctors in my room this morning. In fact, I wasn't disrupted until halfway through my buttered toast, when there was a slight tap on the window facing out to the hallway. I looked up and was surprised when I met the navy grey gaze of the tall janitor from last night. He had used the tip of his mop to knock on the glass and when he realized he had my attention, he made a gesture toward the strict nurse behind him and twisted his face into a very accurate imitation of her sour scowl from the night before. I snort laughed into my juice and waved him in.

"Hey," he said, looking a bit awkward, when he realized we were alone.

I smiled. "Hi."

"I wasn't sure you'd remember me," he said in a tone that more than indicated that he had been involved in my problem. "I just wanted to check on you, before I clocked out."

"How could I ever forget you, the Very Helpful Mop Ghost of Sacred Heart?" I finished my toast and continued: "Thanks for that by the way."

"No problem."

"Who told you about me?"

"Blonde Doctor."

 _Blonde Doctor?_ "You mean Doctor Reid?"

He was halfway through a nod, when someone caught his attention outside. Doctor Dorian was on his way to me from the nurses' station, his gaze glued to a medical file in his hands. The Janitor stepped back a bit, so he wasn't visible from the hallway and just as the young doctor entered the ward, he stuck out his mop, so it blocked the lower part of the doorway. Poor Dorian was completely at his mercy.

With a howl of surprise, Dorian tripped and dived comically into the ward, head first, and landed flat on his stomach. As he stumbled to his feet, his face was so flushing red, he could pass for a police siren.

"You giant c…" he began, spluttering, before he remembered I was in the room as well.

"Howdy," the Janitor said, untouched. He saluted me with a solemn face, before leaving the room, whistling. I tried my best to look concerned, while fighting back a very untimely urge to laugh out loud. Who knew the Janitor was such an immature punk?

"You okay?" I asked.

Dorian ran a hand through his dark, unruly hair and nodded tensely.

"I'll get him for this," he growled, eyes burning holes in the Janitors uniform. "Properly this time."

"He's done it before?"

"For six years!" Dorian exclaimed in frustration.

"Why?"

He stared at me, as if I had just asked why it was such a problem that the Titanic sank. "Because the man's insane, that's why. His nuttier than a Snickers factory."

Because I felt sorry for him, I said nothing. With a sigh, Dorian flipped my papers open and came up to my bed.

"All right," he began, scratching his head with the end of the pen, "we are still a bit lost, to be honest. The CT-scan showed nothing, your blood test came back fine, the EEG is normal." He paused and looked at me. "We have started to suspect that your head damage has nothing to do with the amnesia. In fact, the reason you can't remember anything could be because of the mugging alone and not the injury. It's called psychogenic amnesia. It means you have had such a shock that your brain has sort of wiped itself completely clean to get rid of the bad memory."

I stared at him, my guts tightening.

"You mean… It will never come back?"

Dorian placed a hand on my shoulder. "No, don't worry. In most cases the memory will return entirely. But it will take time. We don't know what triggered the amnesia, so it's difficult to reverse it. But we are in contact with the police and they are currently talking to every hotel and motel in the city in case you stayed the night somewhere."

"But no one has reported me missing?"

"Not yet, but as you said yourself, you're probably not even from this area or even this state, so it's gonna take a while to reach out to the rest of the country. But we will figure this out, don't worry."

He squeezed my shoulder encouragingly and smiled. I had to dig deep to find a smile to give in return. I felt sick to my stomach.

"Thank you, doctor Dorian."

"It's JD."

 _JD_. _Just like me at the moment – Jane Doe._ _How fitting._


	4. Chapter 4 - Flashback I

Chapter 4 – Flashback I

For a brief moment that night, the Janitor had felt like he had stepped back in time. It took him a while to figure out why.

Petite Patient… There was something about her. They had been alone in the darkness and he had deliberately tried to scare her just for the fun of it – and it hadn't worked. Why hadn't he tried harder? It was almost as though he… _what a terrible, terrible thought_ … did not want to scare her.

Furthermore, it had actually felt good to help her. To see her look back at him over her shoulder. To watch her break into laughter, the small person in the big hospital bed.

He had long left the hospital until it finally dawned on him.

They had the same eyes: Livid. Undaunted. And brown.

oOo

" _That janitor-dude… What's his problem?"_

 _In the abandoned meeting room next to the nurses' station, The Janitor stopped what he was doing and held his breath._

 _"What do you mean?" a female voice asked._

 _"What I_ mean _?" the guy continued, sounding genuinely surprised. "Haven't you met him? What's the deal with him? Is he crazy? Slow? What?"_

 _"There's nothing wrong with him?" the woman responded, and the Janitor noticed how her voice suddenly sounded sharper than before. It baffled him._

 _"Yeah, right. I found him in a dark closet last night and you know what he did, when I didn't close the door fast enough? The nutjob_ hissed _at me!"_

 _"So? Maybe he needed some peace and quiet. Who doesn't around here."_

 _"It's not just that. He appears out of thin air and scares the shit out of me and the other interns. It's like he's spying on us."_

 _"Oh, come on, Jack, that's ridiculous!"_

 _"I bet he's lurking right now."_

 _"Don't you have something else to do other than standing here, talking trash about the cleaning staff?"_

 _The Janitor moved ever so silently towards the door and peeked out, just as Pretty-boy Doctor stormed away, leaving the woman alone at the desk. She shook her head and her beautiful, red hair danced around her face. It sparkled like copper underneath the lights._

 _The Janitor stepped out in the hallway and dropped the dirty cloth in the bucket on his cleaning cart. Red-haired Doctor looked up, a little surprised at first, but then she smiled._

 _"Hi."_

 _He raised his chin in a half-nod._

 _"Listen," she began, when he reached for his mop. "I'm not going to pretend that I think you didn't hear that." She tilted her head down the hallway, were Pretty-boy Doctor had disappeared. "Are you okay?"_

 _"Why wouldn't I be?"_

 _She watched him carefully. Her eyes were pretty – dark like chocolate, despite her pale skin. He had noticed it the very first time he met her, when he had helped her open her jammed locker. She had been very polite and thanked him twice. Most of the other staff barely looked at his side, once he had done something for them._

 _"You know, I was thinking about taking a break," Red-haired Doctor said, gazing up at the clock. "Wanna join me for a cup of coffee in the cafeteria?"_

 _He blinked, not sure what to do. None of the other doctors had ever invited him to drink coffee with them. He shrugged._

 _"Okay," he said._

 _She smiled again. "Great."_


	5. Chapter 5 - Sarah

**Chapter 5 – Sarah**

When I stepped out of the bathroom the next morning, there was a girl sitting on my bed, dangling her skinny legs and spreading out a deck of cards on my covers. Somewhat confounded, I stopped and glanced around with a stolen look to locate her parents or the nurse looking after her, but she appeared to be alone.

She raised her head and beamed at me.

"Hi!"

"Err – hi?"

"You wanna play Goldfish? I'm bored."

I'm pretty sure I just imitated the Janitors halfshrug, because I wasn't sure what else to do with her.

"Sure."

Her name was Sarah. She was six years old and had been in the hospital for over a week. Her parents were at work and the other kids were boring. She told me all that in approximately ten seconds without taken a breath.

"What's your name?"

"I'm…" I began, before my mind went blank for a moment. I glanced over at the clipboard on the edge of my bed. "Jane."

"I got bitten by a tick," she told me and stuck her leg out. There was a fading target-like red ring on the back of her calf. Borreliosis.

"Ouch."

"But I'm getting home the day after tomorrow."

"I wish it was me."

We played Goldfish for about half an hour, until the nurses from the pediatric ward finally tracked her down. By that time, I found it nice to have a little company, so I promised I would walk her back when we were done playing. Sarah lost interest in the game some minutes later, letting me know she was hungry. We left my ward and walked down the hallway, looking for a candy machine. When we finally found one, the prices shocked me for some reason. _The horrors of inflation._ I only had enough for one, so we shared.

While finishing my part of the Kit-Kat, I tried to recall my last memory of money, but it just gave me a headache, so I gave up. The thing I remembered were blurred and incoherent, like glances from a badly filmed movie from the early 1900s. I couldn't quite make sense of it.

The only clear memories I had, was from the moment I had woken up in the hospital two whole days ago.

"What's wrong?" Sarah asked, when she noticed I had been caught up in my muddy thoughts.

I grimaced. "I think it's time for my medication. Let's go back…"

But then Sarah glanced past me and let out an excited squeal: "Janitor!"

I turned around. It was him all right – tall and brooding, pushing his cart towards us. But his face seemed to soften when he saw us. Sarah ran to him, clearly with a hug in mind. The Janitor, not looking too happy about the upcoming embrace, picked her up instead and threw her over one shoulder like a bag of flour. The girl whined with joy.

"Well, well, well," the Janitor said. "Looks like we have a runaway patient. What to do with her?"

"Not the Dumpster Monster!" Sarah giggled.

"But I must obey him," the Janitor said in a dramatic, emotionless voice. "He's hungry! He needs foooood!"

"NO! Jane, help me!" Sarah wailed, chuckling hysterically, as the Janitor spun around and began striding down the corridor. I followed, half running to keep up with the Janitors long steps. He didn't stop until we reached the trash area outside and here he lifted Sarah up over his head, like a scene from…

 _The Lion King…?_ The image was suddenly very clear, and I forgot everything else.

"Dumpster Monster!" the Janitor hollowed. "I have your sacrifice!"

Sarah giggled and peeped over the edge of the dumpster. "There's no monster in there, silly. It's empty."

"Oh, that's right," the Janitor responded, lowering her down to shoulder level again. "First we have to lure him out with a nice, tasty threat. Any idea?"

Sarah whispered something in his ear and the Janitor winked conspiratorially at her, before putting her down – and then, as I was still lost in the memory of a long past childhood, he picked me up like I weighted nothing, swung me over his shoulder, like he had done with Sarah, and walked towards the dumpster.

"Oh, no, you don't!" I cried out, half horrified, half laughing, grapping the back of his shirt with my good hand.

"What do you say, Tiny Patient?" the Janitor asked Sarah, pretending he was about to threw me in. "You think she'll be good enough for the Dumpster Mon..?"

" _What in the Devil's name is going on here!?"_ a voice suddenly boomed, causing us all to flinch.

The Janitor froze. I peeked around his head and recognized the Chief of Medicine, Doctor Kelso. He looked furious. The Janitor hoisted me back down on my feet.

"Nothing, sir. I was just…"

"I know what you were _just_ doing," Kelso snarled coldly. " _Not_ doing your job as usual. Get back in here, you idiot. Someone has dropped a bottle of plasma right outside my office!"

Without a word, the Janitor left us and marched past him, his shoulders stiff. Kelso threw us one last, annoyed glare, before slamming the door behind them. I bit my lip. Sarah slid over and took my hand.

"Is he in trouble?" she whispered.

"I'm afraid so," was my heavy respond.

oOo

The first time the Janitor had met Sarah, was the day she was finally able to leave her bed. The frail-looking girl with the blonde hair appeared out of nowhere by his cart one morning, tugging at his pants, right when he was in the middle of mopping the floor outside the pediatric ward.

"I need your help," she stated, looking up at him with big, green eyes.

The Janitor frowned at her. "Busy here, Tiny Patient. Go find a nurse."

"No, it has to be you. Pleeeeeeease."

He waved her off. "Scram."

But she didn't. She narrowed her eyes, pulled the corners of her mouth down and stared at him. The Janitor flinched involuntarily.

 _Sweet Odin – she knows the Evil Eye…_

"You _have_ to help me," she insisted. "You're the only one who's tall enough."

She took him by the hand and pulled him along, and even though the Janitor easily could have picked her up and stuffed her headfirst into a trashcan, he didn't, much to his own surprise. Sarah guided him to her bed, raised her hand and pointed towards the ceiling. The Janitor looked up. Someone had thrown a stuffed rabbit over the lamp and it's head was now stuck in the wires.

"Please!" Sarah repeated. "I miss him."

The Janitor reached up and caught the bunny by the foot, tucking him free. Sarah let out a happy squeal, when he passed it to her, and hugged the animal tightly – and then she stepped forward and flung her small arms around the Janitors waist. He froze – he had never been much for hugs. When he realized she wasn't planning to let go just yet, he patted her awkwardly on the head.

She beamed up at him. "Thank you."

"Who did it?" the Janitor asked.

Sarah spun around and pointed an accusing finger at a boy, a bit older than she was.

" _He_ did!"

The Janitor strolled over, hands in his pockets and sat down by the boy's bedside. The kid eyed him warily.

"Listen," the Janitor began, leaning forward. "I don't know how you were raised, but in this hospital, we are not mean to little girls. In fact, if you ever pull a stunt like that again, I'm gonna have to fed you to the Dumpster Monster."

"There's no Dumpster Monster," the boy objected, albeit not sounding to sure.

"No? Then who you do you think chewed of that man's arm?" the Janitor said, pointing to Leonard, the security guy, who just happened to walk by, waving his claw-hand at them.

"Yeah, that's right," the Janitor whispered, when the boy stared. "He tried to mess with the Dumpster Monster. You don't mess with the Dumpster Monster."

The boy went pale.

 _Well done._

He got up and left. Sarah followed him back to his cart.

"You're scary," she noted, sounding pleased.

"Thanks."

"I'm Sarah."

"Good for you."

"Your name's Janitor?" she asked, after having studied his name tag.

"It's close enough."

"That's not a name."

"Then why does it say so on my name tag?" the Janitor replied wilily.

Sarah pouted her lips considerately, and then seemed to accept it. She left with an enthusiastic 'Bye, Janitor!" and ran back to the ward with the bunny in her arms.

 _Yeah, yeah,_ he thought, returning to his floor-mopping.

oOo


End file.
